New study shows how to reach Pinterest’s fashionistas

New York Fashion Week has been in full force for the past week, capturing the imagination of fashionistas worldwide. We’ve seen new looks spring up by the minute, from catwalk couture to low-key street style. While the shows feature collections for Spring 2017, you can’t expect inspired Pinners to wait that long. We’re already seeing spring trends pop on Pinterest, as Pinners look for ways to adapt new fashion ideas to their everyday lives.

Compared to the general public, Pinners are 2x more likely to follow fashion trends. Once they spot looks they want to try, they use Pinterest to find ideas for bringing their creative visions to life. In fact, 53% of Pinners say they use Pinterest to decide what clothing and accessories to buy. So if you’re in the fashion business, you’ll want to make sure your Pins are always dressed to the nines.

Fashion is one of our biggest categories–more than 8.3 million fashion Pins are added every day! Since Fashion Week boosts our style traffic even more, we got curious about what goes into a successful fashion Pin. We ran an internal study on a year’s worth of fashion Promoted Pins, looking at save, click and checkout rates. Our study tested Pins across 20 creative attributes, from visuals to text overlays to promotional language.

What we learned: fashion Pins aren't one-size-fits-all. In fact, how you style your Pins can have a significant impact on engagement. Here's more on how to get your Pins runway-ready:

1. Show how your products translate to everyday use

Pins that showed someone modeling the clothing or accessories led to a 115% higher checkout rate than Pins that showed products on their own. Pinners want to see how products look on an actual person to get a better sense of fit and style.

Showing products in real-life settings helps Pinners imagine how they’d incorporate the look into their own lives. In our study, real-life settings led to a 30% higher click rate and 170% higher checkout rate than Pins that showed products against a plain or textured background.

2. Put your call to action in the Pin description

Pins with calls to action in the description had 30% higher checkout rates and 60% higher click rates. Meanwhile, Pins with calls to action in the text overlay had 42% lower save rates and 50% lower checkout rates. Putting too much text over the image makes the Pin looks cheap and detracts from inspiring imagery.

Images with branded product placement had 60% higher click rates because they set the scene for a brand’s vision, and make Pinners want to learn more about the brand.

With Fashion Week fresh on Pinners’ minds, now is the perfect time to try some new Promoted Pins. Whether you sell ball gowns or casual t-shirts, these insights will help you make Pins that really turn fashionistas’ heads.